One of the lose ends I've been pursuing from the Ottawa Sharpshooters project I conducted with BIFHSGO colleagues ending in 2005 is the death of William Henry Pardey.

William Henry Pardey was born in Ontario ca. 1862, the son of William Pardey and his English born wife Elizabeth Armstrong (ca. 1830–1886). From just prior to Confederation in 1867 Pardey’s mother, for the second time a widow, ran a boarding house on Wellington Street in Ottawa, close to the present-day location of the Supreme Court.

During the 1885 North West Rebellion, William Henry Pardey served as Lance Corporal with the Sharpshooters and took part in the Battle of Cut Knife Hill. He is listed in the 1887/88 Ottawa city directory, after his mother’s death, as a boarder at 118 Queen Street, and employed with the Militia Department.

In 1892 a William Henry Pardey married Mary Jane Daves-Covich at Christchurch, NZ. In 1921 and 1925 Pardey is listed in the Christchurch telephone book as manager with Canada's Massey Harris Co.

Information I received from a relative on his wife’s side of the family is that the couple likely retired and died in Australia, having had no children.

The Ancestry update lists the death of a William Henry Pardey in Perth, Australia, in 1927. A search of the Australia Trove site of digitized newspapers revealed a clipping from the Perth Sunday Times showing him as a long-time employee of Massey Harris and with death given as 10 February 1927.

I'd want some more evidence to be convinced this is the same William Henry Pardey as served with the Ottawa Sharpshooters.

3 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Very helpful to this customer. The top entry on my first search of Australian Death Indices last night was my ggggrandfather, b. 1783, who left England c. 1853 under clouded circumstances, to 'emigrate to Australia'. I had his son's family in South Australia from 1850-1980, but ships' lists to Adelaide on line become patchy about 1852, and I could never find out whether he got to Oz, and, if so where he died.

The William Henry Pardey you have listed is the same W H Pardey, who served in Canada. William and Mary Jane had no children, and amongst the few possessions their extended family has is his Mounted Rifles Medal.

William Henry Pardey Jr's mother, whom you mention, was Elizabeth Armstrong. Born c. 1825 in Ireland, she was married to William Tyrwhitt of Schomberg, Ont in 1840. William Tyrwhitt died in 1847. Born in 1844, their son Lt. Col. Richard Tyrwhitt was MP for South Simcoe from 1882 until his death in 1900. In the 1861 Canadian census Elizabeth Armstrong Tyrwhitt is listed with her brother-in-law Septimus Tyrwhitt in Bradford, Ont.

I wonder how and where Elizabeth met William Henry Pardey Sr that led them to marry in 1861, the same year she was in Bradford, and what brought them both to Brockville where their son William Henry Pardey Jr was born c 1862. I imagine the presence of Elizabeth's first son Richard Tyrwhitt in Ottawa as an MP may have influenced her move to Ottawa following the c 1869 death of her second husband William Henry Pardey Sr.